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PC Mandeep Dosanjh was among emergency teams who attended the crash scene and said officers had been warned about "a puddle of standing water." He planned to have it photographed but added: "It quickly subsided."

The inquest was told that tree roots were found in the gully after a hole was dug to try and discover why the rain failed to drain quickly from the site.

Details came from Tony Sheehan, who was hired to look at the problem and checked two gullies. There were no problems with one near a railway bridge.

But the other revealed a blockage as he used a jet capable of pumping out water at a pressure of 3,000 pounds a square inch.

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"We were filling the gully with water to prove if it is running or if it is blocked. We have got a trial pipe running into the culvert.

"As you can see from the video pictures, the gully is blocked and not taking water down," said Mr Sheehan.

He was using a pipe which is blue for the first ten metres until it changes colour to yellow. This showed that the blockage was more than ten metres into the gully. Communications cables were also nearby.

During the investigation, he cut open a concrete pipe to find that a repair had been attempted on it. This had been done by running a brown plastic pipe through it but it had not been sealed at both ends.